Country Living Series

Sunday, May 27, 2012

SurvivalBlog down

Several readers have emailed and asked why they've been unable to get on SurvivalBlog.com lately. We haven't been able to either. This is the official announcement:

This weekend, our server in Sweden was put under a "ping flood" Denial of Service (DOS) attack that resulted in 65% packet loss for a few hours.

This attack was most likely orchestrated by the man in Texas who last week anonymously sent me a racist rant and threats against both my blog site and my books. (His e-mail began: "You ni**er lover you have five days to take all links and any [sic] metion for [sic] links below off your site. If you [sic] dont [sic] do it I will post [sic] everyone [sic] of [sic] you [sic] cr***y books on [sic] prirate [sic] sites and kiss your ni**er loving income from them good [sic] by [sic] .")

The attack was timed for a three-day holiday weekend, because the miscreants expected that the staff at our ISP would be unavailable to help up reconfigure.

At least this provided a good test for our Continuity of Web Services (COWS) defenses. Obviously, we are now going to need multiple mirror sites as well as an adaptive cloud server that can handle any future DOS onslaught.

The other lesson this teaches is the importance of having a backup. We provide an offline archive of the past six years of SurvivalBlog posts, available for a modest price.

~Jim Rawles~
Editor, www.SurvivalBlog.com

There is also an update posted on the excellent blog The Orange Jeep Dad, so go take a look at that. Please excuse the language, though Orange Jeep Dad did some admirable deleting.

I never fail to shake my head at the astounding depths of hatred which lurk in some people. Please pray that the SurvivalBlog folks can get things straightened out.

40 comments:

An interesting fact I am learning through the use of web statistics on my OJD blog is that many folks had this occurance (the shutdown of SurvivalBlog.com) set as one of tbeir major markers that it is time to Bug Out.

By tracing back incoming links to where folks are coming from to read the post, I am being led to forum discussions where folks are saying "I've always thought that when the Government takes down SurvivalBlog, it is a major sign that it is time to head out"

Obviously we don't know exactly WHO took down the site with a DoS attack nor do I think this is a reason to Bug Out but it certainly DOES show that we need to practice redundancy and be prepared.

I completely expect SurvivalBlog will be back online no later than Tuesday, as soon as the low-staffed holiday weekend is over. I also purchased the archive CD from Amazon (linked in my post) to both assure that I have a complete copy of SB and to show support for his work with all that he has done for our community.

Prayers out to his family AND his adverisers who were also threatened by this hater/hacker.

You're right about "the system," but WHO, pray tell, is RUNNING the system? It's definitely not conservatives! We're not in a battle between Republicans and Democrats, it's a battle between conservatives and liberals. It all begins in our public schools where we're constantly being indoctrinated by the liberal mindset. Those fortunate enough to have parents who know how to counter the lies and indoctrination (brainwashing) are truly blessed, as was I. Oh, there are a few right-wingers who get a little carried away now and then, but for the most part, those who use the really foul language and show nothing but hate and intolerance (Patrice calls them "snarks") are always liberals. Always. Not necessarily Democrats, because there ARE moderate Dems who would never use foul language. The wealthy liars in this world want us to think it's Repubs against Dems, because they want to keep us divided and controlled, which eventually leads to our being conquered. You want to be taken seriously? Clean up your language and act like an adult.

Sorry but the Democrats were all the KKK. It was very brave Blacks in Texas who started the Republican Party here. Simply, some ppl still associate the historical reference cause in many place the stereotypes still hold true.

What an asshole. We have a similar jerk in our little town who stands on the street corner wearing a sign demanding equal rights for whites and is trying to run for State Rep on the grounds of "eugenetics" and "weeding out the poverty races". Pathetic excuse for a human.

I didn't see in that reprinted email any mention of attacking the web site. From what little I know of it (which isn't much) it would take a decent set up or more than a few people working together to disrupt a site with only one or two mirrors and a bandwidth survival blog must be running so I doubt it was a one man operation.

The whole affair is disgraceful and uncalled for whatever the case. Rawles does follow the diversity propaganda hype playbook pretty meticulously so I am not surprised his site got attacked but it is still uncalled for. As for that threatening email (if it is genuine) well whoever wrote it is a bit unhinged.

Thank you Patrice for posting this. I read SurvivalBlog everyday, but didn't notice the crash - how, you wonder? Because I read via RSS, and my RSS reader essentially downloads the whole of each post into the reader. If you've always wondered what those orange RSS squares are for on your favorite blogs, now might be a good time to learn.

Here's how, along with some info on how RSS can help you find the time to prep: http://www.wildriverrogues.com/2010/10/finding-the-time-to-prep-smartphones-and-rss-feeds/

I hope they have a smooth and easy recovery and get back up and running soon.

Dos attacks are a dime a dozen.. I know that out in that area and on the west coast there were some really ugly racist groups that were heavily involved in the internet. I dont know nor do I honestly think they had anything to do with this... by the sound of it, its someone older who cares less of any type of legal lashings that might come of his actions. Which also tells me that he will screw up somewhere and leave his internet foot prints.

Ken, your offer for vigilante follow-up is understandable. But the ad hominem conflation of demon with democrat is not. That sort of rhetoric and behavior is the other side of the same coin as the racists who attacked Survivalblog in the first place.

I don't understand. what has hateing n***** got to do with Jews??? Truely sorry that such a fine site that has done so much to protect its self has this problem. some people make me feel sick. twisted hatred and racism should be a thing of the past.

This is a good reminder of how well James Wesley Rawles has helped us in the most CRITICAL areas. i.e. grocery stores shut down, grid down, hardware stores, gas stations, law enforcement, medical supplies, healthcare facilities unavailable and the list goes on. Mr. Rawles' web site might be down but he has already got us covered.Montana Guy

For Patrice and Orange Jeep Dad,I just purchased the download from Amazon. Thank you both for the 'heads up'. Hopefully, someone will figure out who this insane person is and he will be arrested, fined and sent to jail. I pray that too much damage has not been done. We all need to be prepared.

95.143.193.148 dotted quad is down but the other dotted quad of 64.92.111.122 is still up. this dotted quad is in america while the .148 ending dotted quad is in sweden. the .148 cannot be accessed. I just tried it and my browser just sits there and times out. be aware the .122 does work but has only todays info on it, not the full blog, and it is in text format and not html.

Mr. Rawles is truly one of the nicest and most generous people we know. I was surprised when I saw the site down but figured that he'll recover soon, for all of his resilience. We did not realize that advertisers were threatened, but we are proud to advertise on Survivalblog. It gives us the opportunity to support his work and to educate others about food self-sufficiency. Our thoughts and prayers---Chaya and Wilson Pantry Paratus

To be honest, I didn't understand half of SurvivalBlog.com's official announcement or "Orange Jeep Dad's" comments. But from what I DO know about the Internet, I'm very suspicious about this. How can one hateful snark do so much damage??? If this is possible by just anyone, we're ALL in a lot of trouble! But no, I actually think there were some brains behind this. I think someone with a lot of money is paying someone else to cause conservative blogs and websites a lot of grief. I don't think the person who wrote the attack was actually that stupid and ignorant. I think it was all a sham. Call me paranoid, but you're not paranoid if it's true! --Fred in AZ

well i wondered what had happened yesterday..now i know. i read survivor blog everyday and when i could not bring it up i figured something was up. it might havve been caused by a radical group, a hate group or it could have been one of our own government entities (yea, they will do this if they think it should be done for some reason)...hope it gets back up quickly.

Anonymous 2:53, it is still called a dotted quad. The word is even in Survival Blog's URL title:

http://64.92.111.122/dottedquad.html

It is also called an IPv4 or IP address. They are resetting the site now. It was up with simple text (no background, no ads, etc). As of 20:38 MST they are integrating the background image with the text and might have the US server back up (it was the Sweden server that was attacked) by morning.

It is probably a DDOS, not a DOS attack.DOS - Denial Of ServiceDDOS - Distributed Denial Of Service.

This is this answer the how does one guy do this question. It may be one person pulling the lever, but it almost certainly dozens, hundreds or thousands of computers over which that one has gotten control.

A great number of viruses don't destroy your computer, they steal processing and bandwidth. Some of them sit idle until they are duly commanded to take action, like endlessly ping a web site.

One computer bashing a properly set up website will not bring it down, but dozens, hundreds, thousands will.

Best thing you can do is be careful where you go on the internet - there are some very seedy neighborhoods, AND run strong anti-virus protection. Keep your anti-virus up-to-date and use it. Keep your computer from becoming one of the robot machines that do the bidding of some hacker, such as DDOS attacks, or spam emails.

All I saw on Amazon was a Kindle version of the Survival Blog Archive. Does somebody have the link to an actual CD? I am Kindle, iPad, iPhone free and intend to remain that way. Computers? I have about a dozen doing various things, but I also like to leave the house and be free of them...

Just a thought. This email was probably not sent by a white racist, but by someone trying to marginalize and discredit conservative whites in the eyes of the prepper community. The attack is too sophisticated a strategy for a lone loon. Would not surprise me at all if this was the act of someone in our current government. Further, we should expect more of the same as the powers that be try to divide and conquer the non-sheeple.

I second the idea that this was "someone trying to marginalize and discredit conservative whites in the eyes of the prepper community". This level of racism/hatred is far more rare then the media would have you believe. There are more faked racist attacks, faked by minorities, then there are real racist attacks/incidents. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out about this case as more is learned.

Interesting timing on the attack. I'm sure .gov hates the idea of independent minded people that don't need or want their help. Can't turn them into dependent victims that way I guess. Keep up the good work JWR!

I accidentally found this site looking for JWL's IP address, since the site is unresponsive. It's July 4th, 2013 and the Swedish site is indeed down. JWL says it's a D0S. However, thanks to Orange Jeep Dad, I found the American mirror's IP and can report that it is still up.

It's entirely possible that the individual or individuals doing this are using the racist persona as a screen. It may in fact have absolutely nothing to do with race, and everything to do with politics. In reading the screed left with J.W. it seems a bit over the top, like someone's idea of a "dreadful KKK persona" rather than a real person.